February 27, 2008

Northern Illinois U. Will Tear Down Building Where Students Were Shot

The classroom building at Northern Illinois University where this month a gunman fatally shot five students before killing himself will be torn down, state and university officials announced today.

In its place, the university will use state funds to construct a “state of the art” classroom building, to be named Memorial Hall, said Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois and Northern Illinois’s president, John G. Peters.

The two officials were scheduled to hold an afternoon news conference with state lawmakers in front of the building, Cole Hall, where Steven P. Kazmierczak, a former student, shot 22 students on February 14 before turning the gun on himself.

Though students resumed classes this week after a 10-day closure, Cole Hall, which sits in the center of the university’s DeKalb campus, has remained shuttered since the shooting. —Libby Sander

Comments

1. VT did not tear down Norris Hall, an antiquated fire hazard and death pit. Why? VT is all about MONEY, not student safety, morale or integrity.

   Thank-you NIU and Pres Peters for setting the standard.

   — debster    Feb 27, 04:59 PM    #

2. Unfortunately I’m not so sure if this is Illinois setting the standard or another effort by the governor of Illinois to have another showpiece to point to. Though I have a great deal of respect for President Peters and the rest of the leadership at NIU (they have dealt with a terrible situation extremely well) the governor is Illinois is a whole different matter (I consider him the Democratic Equivilent of “W”) – particularly knowing how tight capital funding is in Illinois for Higher Education.

   — An Illinois Resident    Feb 27, 05:43 PM    #

3. I’m glad they are tearing it down. It would be place filled with tragedy. I don’t know if anyone would be able to take a class without thinking about what happened.

   — Former lecturer in Cole Hall at NIU    Feb 27, 07:05 PM    #

4. I think it is wasteful and historically shallow to demolish the building. Suitable memorials and annual ceremonies may be established to commemorate the tragedy, and retaining the building will mean there will be a site to recall the tragedy in 20, 50 and 100 years time.

   — Gavin Moodie    Feb 27, 07:14 PM    #

5. Instead of being sentimental, use the money to establish scholarships. Morally, it is far better to honour the dead by creating something that will always benefit the society they left, rather than building a monument that neither offers solace to those who remain behind nor hope for something better for those to who will come next. Let then the continuation of learning be the lasting shrine and the epitaph: after all, those who died studied not to erect a new building but to change the world…

   — Dag von Lubitz    Feb 27, 09:17 PM    #

6. Tearing down the building is a bad idea! But appropriate for our Governor! It’s about tv time not reality! The same day of the NIU shooting 4 kids died in a car accident near Peoria, but the Governor has not supported tearing up the hiway! Not as much press I guess!
   We need to move on ! When a parent or child dies in our house, we don’t tear it down! It becomes a focus of our strength to over come and rise above it all.

   — Garry    Feb 27, 11:51 PM    #

7. I can not picture how hard it would be to take a class in a place that had such a tragic incident happen right there. I applaud the governor and the president for taking a stand on this. I am sure that the families of those lost will appreciate this gesture.

   — ES    Feb 28, 12:14 AM    #

8. As someone who worked for VT at the time of the tragedy, the decision to keep Norris Hall was a wise one. Why should we continue to let those that kill us (like Islamo-fascist) get to keep us running and trying to forget? Let’s not give into fear and let those that would do us harm control our lives, but let us remember those that lost their lives by claiming what is ours.
   Norris Hall is not a deathtrap, and it is much better stewardship of the building to renovate and change it’s use than to spend the multi-millions more that it would have taken to reconstruct the building. It sounds like someone at Northern Illinois might be taking this opportunity to build an edifice to themselves as opposed to thinking about the best interests of the US and Illinois taxpayer.

   — PD    Feb 28, 07:54 AM    #

9. One should look at the age and functionality of the strtucture. If this is a newer and productive asset of the school, alternatives should be considered. Renaming and approppriate renovations may serve NIU better for the long run. Financial climates are grim in all states and I suspect the availability of capital development funds was not considered before the press conference.

   — rwo    Feb 28, 07:55 AM    #

10. Norris Hall at Virginia Tech includes some very specialized laboratories with large equipment for researchers in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. Tearing down Norris Hall would have put a number of ESM researchers out of action for at least two years until a new building was built or until they transitioned to a new institution. Why should even more suffer, especially from a department that lost two outstanding faculty colleagues? NIU and VT both need to make their own decisions about what is best. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

    — SM    Feb 28, 08:08 AM    #

11. Tearing down the NIU facility is the RIGHT thing to do…accalades to the smart administrators

    — gene middleton    Feb 28, 08:33 AM    #

12. Blagojevich is playing to the TV cameras again. After all, he doesn’t even have the $40 million that “Memorial Hall” would cost in his budget – which has provided next to nothing for higher ed buildings recently. Spending $40 million to replace a functioning classroom building is a shameful waste of scarce Illinois higher ed funds. Cole Hall should be remodeled, as was already planned, build in a suitable memorial, rename it “Memorial Hall” if that’s what the campus community wants, then the balance of the money used for other necessary higher ed building projects.

    — Mike    Feb 28, 09:20 AM    #

13. Wow! Tear down the building. That is a very expensive proposal. $20 million I heard this morning on the local news. I worry that tearing down a building at the site of such a tragedy sets a difficult precedent for small and/or private schools who cannot count on a media-hungry governor to promise funding. To expect that the building be torn down in the aftermath if a shooting is not realistic.

    It is a nice idea, and I respect the former lecturer from Cole Hall who properly predicts the building “would be place filled with tragedy,” but $20 million dollars is a lot of money and simply replacing the building will not sweep away the hurt.

    I live within a 2-hour drive of NIU and my heart goes out to those people every day. I pray that nothing like that ever comes to my campus, or yours, thus, making my entire argument moot.

    — d    Feb 28, 09:56 AM    #

14. Is there anything wrong with the building itself? If not, this seems like an awfully expensive knee-jerk reaction to a very sad event.

    Can you imagine if we tore down every building where someone was killed? Where do you draw the line? I’d much rather see the money used to improve mental illness education, fund scholarships, better-equip classrooms, lower tuition….

    — Brian    Feb 28, 11:28 AM    #

15. As an Illinois resident, I’d have to agree that it’s all about the governor. He has done nothing about funding for higher ed — or K-12 education for that matter. Au contraire! He has procrastinated and blocked every effort. Now, out of the blue, we need a new building! This will just be another unfunded mandate. Probably when the building is torn down, funds will “suddenly” dry up, and there will be a big hole in the ground for 20 years.

    Besides, tearing down the building is not the best way to deal with this tragedy. Ideas posted in this blog are infinitely more reasonable than the governor’s proposal. May their cooler heads – not to mention brighter minds -prevail.

    — -L    Feb 28, 12:16 PM    #

16. Let’s tear down the entire interstate road system while we are at it. All those killed by drunk drivers haunt the road system and depress me.

    — Greg    Feb 28, 02:49 PM    #

17. I don’t know about Cole Hall, but Norris Hall at Virginia Tech held only some classrooms. Most of the space is faculty and grad student lab space and offices. Tearing down Norris would have meant a dead halt to a great deal of research until a new building was completed.

    — N    Feb 28, 03:33 PM    #

18. Note that we didn’t tear down the Pentagon after 9/11. We rebuilt it, and we continue to use it for its intended purpose. I, for one, am in favor of rebuilding the twin towers as well, though I realize that will never happen.

    Before any of you return snide comments about the Pentagon, remember that innocent civilians, as well as military folks, were killed there. I had close friends there. I also had a cousin who was in the World Trade Center when it was hit. Fortunately for her she escaped unharmed.

    The best possible memorial I can think of is to pick ourselves up and go about our business again – not like it never happened, but in spite of the fact that it happened.

    Those who are evil often glory in our recognition of them. We must not. As the great philosopher Satchel Paige once said, “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.”

    — FB    Feb 28, 05:02 PM    #

19. I live not far from Blacksburg, and I definitely think that VT made the best decision for its needs. Further, I believe that the decision to renovate Norris Hall, rather than rebuild, has helped the campus move forward much quicker — if you drive through the VT campus, Norris Hall now looks innocuous, just like all of the other buildings that circle the drillfield. In comparison, a huge construction site in the center of campus keeps the tragedy in the forefront of minds throughout the construction period. Sometimes it’s better to move on, albeit it is never an easy thing to do in situations like this.

    — Ryan    Feb 29, 11:14 AM    #

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